W.R. Mitchell Archive

In this section...

These recordings uniquely document life in the Dales through the stories of local Dales folk told in their own words and dialects. In January 2012 Settle Stories received a £50,000 Heritage Lottery Fund Grant for the W.R. Mitchell Pilot Project to digitise a selection of Bill’s collection of cassette tapes and enable a new generation not only to read history—but to listen to it on a website!

These stories captured on tape range from the local gentry, including the Dawsons of the Folly, Settle, and the Yorkes of Halton Place, to ordinary folk scraping a living against the odds in remote Dales communities. They also represent a unique archive of the different Dales accents and dialects used over forty years ago, voices which are not often heard in the Dales today.

Without the work of Bill Mitchell many of these stories would have been lost to us and yet these recordings provide a fascinating insight into the lives of Dales folk, all the more powerful as they are told in their own words and dialects.

You might like to find out a little bit more about the people interviewed by clicking on the link The People.